Tricks of Muhammad Ali - Doubling the lead right hand

He wasn't an executioner like Louis or Liston or Williams or Foreman, but it's absolute mythology that this guy couldn't punch.

 

Very deceptive, I've seen no one throw punches like Ali, his punches were like throwing a curve ball.

 

Foreman said of the knockout punch in Zaire that it was "the fastest and most on target punch that I never saw"

 

100% agree. He could crack when he dug in his toes and punched away.

On paper, if anyone else had stopped Liston twice, stopped Foreman, stopped Frazier, stopped Lyle, stopped Bonavena, stopped Quarry twice, stopped Ellis, stopped Cleveland Williams, stopped Moore, stopped Patterson twice, stopped Foley, stopped Cooper twice ... we'd be hailing him as among the greatest punchers ever.

Imagine if there was no film of these fights.

We'd have all been really confused.

 

he has an interesting bag technique where he pushes the bag out and hits it as it's coming in, requiring much more force to get it going back the other direction

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That was standard back when it was customary for the heavy bag to move.

 

His first career resume looks like a puncher's record.

 

On the other hand, this is a good illustration of how we shouldn't dismiss what people thought at the time.

In your scenario, I can definitely imagine some "revisionist" guy searching Boxrec and gradually convincing the forum that Ali was the most murderous puncher of the 60s and 70s, while Shavers was an overhyped mediocrity.

 

I don't like those new "heavy bag stands" that are in a lot of gyms. There is little room around the bag and it only hangs at about 7-8'. The fighter can't circle the bag or work it like a person, they can only hit it. We still have our bags hanging at about 14' with long chains and a spring and room to move around them. Another thing I've seen in a lot of gyms are the Muay Thai bags that rub the floor and don't move. I don't like that idea either. I like a bag that moves and plenty of room around it so the guy using it can use angles and move too.

Ali could hit hard when he wanted to, a guy who weighed 215 and knew how to transfer his weight will have power. Opponents didn't disregard the punches of Jimmy Young and Chris Byrd, two other guys who are not known for power, but their punches hurt and they made their opponents hesitant. Some people like Shavers put more behind their punches than others, almost all of his punches were hard, but nobody just walks through the punches of the guys who don't seem to put much behind them.

 

his speed and accuracy also helped, being able to land punches that the other guy didn't see coming on specific targets, I bet his lead rights were especially taunting because they had that element to them but the other guy also probably noticed it at the last second and couldn't do anything about it

 

I remember Muhammad Ali used the double right hand against Karl Mildenberger on Sept 10 1966, it was a weapon against Mildenberger's southpaw stance.

 

Speed kills..... Though Ali had more power than given credit for, it was primarily his speed, accuracy, and possibly even more importantly timing that was key to his ko percentage.
Some fighters in their primes got away with certain things other, less physically gifted fighters would've gotten killed attempting to do.
Ali's double straight right hands, Jones Jr. Leaping left hooks, followed by 3-4 more in rapid succession
Robinson's multiple jabs while both feet were off the canvas and moving, Whitaker getting down to knee level and remaining defensively sound, in fact that was a part of his defense.
This group of boxers ( And a few others) were exceptionally skilled AND extremely gifted physically.
There's no trick to Ali's double right hands, just an extremely gifted athlete able to do what most of us who's actually been in a boxing gym and trained for more than a day was told never to do.
That's lead with a right hand from an orthodox stance..... And God forbid a double right hand.
Old boxing coaches ( especially mine who's been dead since 1990) would be still cussing my ass out from his grave.

 

I'm on board for that revision.

 

Ali was a big dude, bigger than his measurables even, long levers, total cotrol though his hips and shoulders, and quick as lightning. No way he couldn't punch when he dug in. He just had other options. Thus the long career of dominance.